SHIRLEY HIVE contains two brood boxes only. Bees and new queen installed in this hive, by Richard Hebert, from a group without a queen, on April 12, 2013.

I opened lid and saw lots of bees here. Then I removed inner cover, saw small hive beetles (SHB) on top of frames on top brood box and killed with hive tool.

I inspected frames, in upper box, starting with outer ones on both ends going toward center of frames. I saw bees but no sign of any building activity until frame three .

By this time bees were swarming me badly and were very mad (time is 9:30 am and sunny), hitting my veil and two stung me through my bee suit in the area of my belly (probably the part of my body toughing the inside of the suit, had no T shirt on). It was just a prick so the bees were not able to get stingers into me deeply. Also I got a sting through the left glove between wrist and elbow. Again, it was just a small sting. Also I got a bite on right leg, just above my sock. The itch went away after I applied stick Benadryl.

I did not remove upper box completely to look at lower box, replace all frames and inner cover and lid. NO honey from this hive for JEC. This year all the honey will go to bees for winter food.

HEBERT HIVE contains two brood boxes and one honey super. These bees swarmed and I lost half of them on April 10, 2013. Richard and I Installed a new queen, assuming old one went with swarm, on April 12, 2013.

I opened lid and saw lots of bees here. Then I removed inner cover and inspected frames. No hive beetles present due to treatment inside.

Working bees are in super but they produced almost nothing in the way of comb on any frame. I thought there would have been something but I guess all their work has gone into storing supplies in lower and upper supers for winter. I did not inspect upper or lower brood boxes at this time. I just looked down from super and all looked well. There will be NO honey from this hive for JEC this year, all work gone into storing supplies for upper and lower brood box. Bees in the Hebert Hive are better than Shirley Hive, but they are still annoyed by me.

RESULTS: No honey to harvest for JEC from Shirley or Hebert Hive. What honey made, was left for the two hives to consume for winter food.

Hello Fellow beekeepers,
Old man winter has hit us with a couple of late cool snaps this last month. The hardest one came the last week of March/first week of April with two mornings of heavy frost that really hurt some of the fruit bloom. The frost killed the white clover blooms, which took about a week to recover. Many people lost their tomatoes and pepper plants, even with them covered. The third week of April cooled down a bit with the north side of our area seeing temperatures in the thirties. By the end of May we will be pleading for the cool weather to return.
The bees are beginning to bring in surplus nectar and I am seeing some fresh wax starting to show up. This year the bees may not swarm as much a normal or the swarming has been delayed a little. I have had only three or four swarm calls where as last year I had a dozen or more by this time. On Saturday April 20, I had just added a honey super to a crowded hive and was adding to other hives when a swarm poured out and settled on a branch about twenty foot up. I gathered up my swarm bucket and extra box only to return and find that they had went on to greener pastures. Maybe a caring beekeeper has found them. Awesome sight to watch them swarm.
May is upon us and the tallow bloom in coming at the end of the month, better have the honey supers ready to add. We have had an average rain fall this year so the nectar flow should be good this spring. I love chicken trees!(Chinese tallow trees) The white clover will hang around till the temperatures get close to 90 degrees which is usually mid-may.
This month our club meeting will be on May 6th at my house, 4456 hwy 27 DeRidder la. Board member Suzie Langly will go over inspecting a hive and what to look for in a healthy hive. If you have a suit and veil bring it because we will open up a hive and go thru it. If you don’t have a suit, come on any way I have one you can borrow. The fun starts a 7 O’clock so we only have a little over an hour before dark then we will have to go inside for discussion and questions. Looking forward to seeing you there, so come on.
Mr. Jimmy Cooley had some fun when his hive swarmed only days before they were to be requeened. The cool weather had delayed queen shipment and put him later requeening than planned. O well “what man proposes, God disposes” Mr. Jimmy’s marked queen left with half or more of the workers. Plan B, Pull out the new queens and introduce the purchased queen. I have posted some on Jimmy’s photos of the requeening event.

Jimmy Earl Cooley has one bee hive designated, Hebert Hive, which was started in April of 2012. He purchased a complete bee starter kit from Mann Lake and assembled on April 16, 2012. Richard Hebert, president of the Beauregard Parish Beekeepers Association and long time bee keeping hobbyists captured swarm of bees in DeRidder, LA and placed the swarm, with queen, into Jimmy’s hive on April 25th. With help and assistance, visits, emails, telephone calls and personal contact, and beekeepers meetings Jimmy has managed the healthy hive through the spring and summer of 2012 and harvested one half gallon of honey in September 2012. The hive successfully made it through the winter of 2012 in good shape. It was decided to replace the queen bee in the spring of 2013 so several queen bees were ordered from RWeaver of Texas. The Queen bees were ordered; marked and clipped and delivered to us on April 17th. The original plan, before the swarming, was to split the Hebert Hive into two groups with a new queen in each of two hives. Hebert and Shirley Hives.

Unfortunately, on April 12, 2013 the Hebert Hive swarmed and at least 50 % of the bees were lost, plus the queen. When I noticed the overhead swarming around 11 am on this morning and consequently the gathering of the swarm on a 40 foot tall pine sapling. I decided to try to capture the swarm and truly I should have called for help in removing the swarm from the top of the young pine tree. This would have allowed for additional hands and knowledge in trying capturing the ball of bees that had settled near the top of the pine sapling. It would have allowed for one person to cut the tree and the other to slowly lower the tree, allowing for capture of the bees in a box, rather than what happened, which was: I cut the tree diameter too much and it fell and the bees dispersed and lost the queen in process. This resulted in the queen flying away to another tree near the original tree, but a sweet gum instead of pine. By time I tried to react the new swarm being formed, in the sweet gum tree and consequently the swarm leaving for unknown parts and The hive remained queen less (or we thought so) for two days before the new queens arrived and we proceeded to open the hive and install a new queen on April 18th. When the hive was opened we found many queen cells that were already opened and Richard retrieved two young queens from the open hive. He captured and removed the 2 new queens and placed in plastic queen containers. He then installed one of the new queens (Buckfast variety) at 6 pm on April 18 into the hive and closed it. The Hebert Hive was opened on Saturday the 20th at 7 pm for inspection to see if the new queen had been released by the workers from the queen box into the hive. The queen box was empty and the queen and workers that were shipped with her were gone and in the hive. The hive seemed content with this arrangement.

For the Shirley Hive, Richard had a queen less group of bees that he removed from one of his hives so he installed this bunch of bees into my Shirley Hive (which was empty) along with one of the new queens (All American) and the hive closed, again around 6pm on April 18th . This hive was also opened on Saturday, April 20th for inspection to see if the new queen had been released by the workers from the queen box into the hive. The sugar was not completely eaten away and she was not released, so I carefully opened a small hole in the candy disc and she quickly left the queen cage and dropped into the hive. I looked at the hive around dark and all seemed content.